Pixeled Multimedia Teachers Association

On Friday May 26th there was a girls conference held at Swinburne University. The conference was part of the More Bytes research project which involves seven schools in Victoria that are hoping to discover strategies to encourage girls to study IT and Multimedia at University and a career in the industry. The age range of the girls was from year 8 to 10 and they were drawn from a variety of backgrounds. Some were from private schools whilst others were attending educational facilities from low socio-economic environments. The schools involved included Merrilands, La Trobe Secondary College, Banksia College, Wesley College, Warrandyte High School, Shepparton High School and Fitzroy High School. There was also a video link up with students from Fitzroy Crossing District School in Western Australia.

The morning started with an address from the Dean of the Multimedia Faculty and then continued with the girls showing short films. The films were made by the students about their schools. This was followed by the girls splitting into groups and using Macromedia Flash to create a t-shirt design. Most girls worked well on creating a unique design with the theme of girls in IT. The adults in involved in the program were busy trying to transfer the designs from the computer to a t-shirt, not an easy task with 90 girls involved in the project.

After lunch the group was bought back together to listen to a discussion from women currently working in the industry. One was a graphic designer from Paris who showed her interactive website. The other was a film maker who spoke of using her film background to create multimedia. The women were inspiring the girls were interesteand th The feedback from the day was positive witd in the way in which multimedia draws from many creative strands. At the conclusion of the conference the girls filled out a questionairre about the success of the day and most of the feedback was positive.

The project will continue with girls currently studying at Swinburne acting as mentors to the girls at high school. This will involve a number of projects that will be guided by the mentors but will include networking the girls across the different schools.

Its been an interesting project to be involved in and I'll be going up to Fitzroy Disctrict High School in Fitzroy Crossing to teach the girls there how to use Macromedia Flash and Dreamweaver. I'll keep you posted.